


Princess In A Bottle

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Mirrormask (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-11
Updated: 2010-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-10 12:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What was the use of all this finery? She didn't want it. She didn't need it. She wanted <i>out,</i> and she wanted to <i>be</i> and to <i>do</i> and <i>experience</i> all those things everyone told her not to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Princess In A Bottle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Imprisonment" box on my [hc_bingo](http://community.livejournal.com/hc_bingo/) card.

The Dark Princess was trapped inside the bottle again. This time, the Dark Queen vowed she would never release the Princess. She wasn't willing to lose her again, and the Princess would never be able to return to Helena's world. The Dark Princess had raged and shouted and struck at the walls of her prison, but they were thick magical glass. The Princess didn't really have magic of her own. The Mirrormask was gone, and there was no other way for her to travel between worlds. What little skill she had was removed by the Dark Queen upon her imprisonment. She had no name, no power, no freedom.

She sank down to the bottom of the bottle, dark skirts pooling around her. What was the use of all this finery? She didn't want it. She didn't need it. She wanted _out,_ and she wanted to _be_ and to _do_ and _experience_ all those things everyone told her not to.

The Princess screamed and struck the walls again. It didn't change the fact that she was stuck, that she was helpless and caught in a trap.

_Boom. Boom. Boom._

Startled, the Dark Princess looked around for the source of the noise. It reverberated within the bottle, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

And then she saw it, a tall tower coming closer to her prison. There was a man inside waving, his mask purple and taupe. It looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn't have said why.

_All my daughters will remain here,_ the Dark Queen had said when the Princess was shut up inside the bottle. _You are all the same. You all try to get away from me. Well, I won't have it! You'll stay with me, and you're never leaving me!_

The Dark Princess pressed her hands against the glass. The tower came close to the Dark Palace, then came right up alongside it.

"Oh, ho," the masked man said. "You _do_ look like Helena in there, don't you?" He laughed and pressed his hands to the other side of the glass. "I'm Valentine."

"Valentine." The glass bottle hadn't told her his name, just allowed her to recognize his masked face. "Why are you here?"

"Well, my tower and me, we travel a lot. And she's got quite the knack for knowing when someone's in trouble." He touched the edge of his mask thoughtfully. "I suppose because you look so much like Helena, she just had to stop and see what was the matter."

The Dark Princess sighed. "I'm not Helena."

"No, you're not. But she's gone back to her own world."

"So, what? I'm the next best thing?"

"Oh, Princess," Valentine sighed, shaking his head. "You are so much like her in some ways... I think you're _our_ Helena. Maybe that's what my Tower picked up on." He patted the wall of the tower affectionately. "So... Do you have her same sense of adventure?"

"What?"

Valentine knocked on the glass experimentally. The sound reverberated almost painfully inside the bottle. "Hey!" the Princess cried, startled. "Don't do that!"

"It's breakable, I'm sure of it," he said, knocking on the bottle in another location. "It's all a question of finding the proper break point."

"Valentine!" the Princess cried, covering her ears. "Stop! I command you!"

"I'm not so good with orders, Princess," Valentine said in a jovial manner, continuing to knock on various parts of the bottle. "Especially when this is so very necessary."

The Dark Princess covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut as Valentine continued. It wasn't as if she could stop him anyway.

Eyes shut, she missed when a knock sent a wicked shudder through the enchanted glass. "Steady now," he said, more to the tower than to the Princess. The Tower shimmied closer to the Dark Palace walls, as close to the enchanted stones as she dared, an open window poised just beneath the suspended glass bottle. Valentine nodded, then knocked on that same spot again, harder, and the wicked shudder turned into a shower of shattered glass. The Princess fell with a cry, right into the open window. The Tower straightened up, pleased, and began to maneuver her way away from the Dark Palace as quickly as she could. It wouldn't do to be caught just when the escape was made.

The Princess shivered, crouched over the stones of the Tower's floor. Valentine descended the stairs in leaps until he came to the level where the Princess had fallen. "You're free now, Princess," he said, lips quirked into a smile. "Where would you like to go?"

"You suicidal bastard," the Princess said, launching herself at him. "Don't you know she'll come after me? She'll kill you for this," she cried, striking at his chest with her fists. "She'll only hide me somewhere else, somewhere deeper in the Palace where I'll never be seen again! At least she let me have some light!"

Valentine caught her fists in his hands when he was tired of being hit. "Princess. We're not going back. We'll go beyond the Borderlands. I like a good adventure. So does my Tower. What about you? Do you have a sense of adventure?"

She had thought she had, when she escaped to that other world with the Mirrormask. She had become Helena, only everything had spiraled out of control. She had shouted at everyone and burned things and smoked and found random boys to bring home to snog, knowing that it would annoy Helena's family. She hadn't cared about anyone or anything, and nothing had mattered. The Princess had thought it was all a grand adventure at the time, but looking back... It was empty. It had been as much of a trap as the enchanted glass bottle her mother had just kept her in.

Valentine lifted a hand to cup her face in his hand. "It's all right if you don't know. You don't have to know. We'll figure it out as we go along, if you want." His thumb grazed the side of her mouth, and the Princess' lips parted slightly. "Or maybe it's a different kind of adventure you want? Maybe not places to go, but people to see?"

"I just want to get away," the Princess said, voice hoarse. "She locks me away all the time. She says it's to keep me safe, but I can't be safe like that. It can't be good for me like that."

"I won't lock you up," Valentine said in a quiet voice. "I also promise that you will probably get mad at me at some point and want to leave. Most people do. But I'm a very important man, and if my Tower can forgive me, I'm sure you can, too." He smiled at her, and leaned down a bit so that his forehead touched the top of her head. "It's also a promise that things seem worse before they get better. But it does get better, even if you don't think it does right away."

The Princess sighed and pulled away from Valentine. "I don't know what I was thinking, allowing you to do this..." Her voice trailed off as she noticed the view outside of the window. It wasn't familiar at all. "Where are we going?"

Valentine grinned rakishly. "I don't know. Wherever my Tower's heart desires. And right now, it's as far away from your mother as we can get."

Eyes wide, the Princess looked around. She really was free. He hadn't been joking about that. It wasn't some sort of strange test her mother was putting together that she would inevitably fail. She was _free._

She launched herself at him again, this time to wrap her arms around him. "Thank you. Thank you. I can't ever thank you enough."

Valentine wrapped his arms around her as well. "No, probably not. But we can try, yeah? How about a smile? You haven't smiled at me once."

The Princess looked up and pulled her lips back into a grimace of a smile. "I haven't really had reason to learn how to do this properly."

"It just means I have to teach you. I rather look forward to that." Valentine laughed. "Another adventure. And the trick of it all is to keep ahead of your mother. I think we can do it."

The grimace settled itself to a half smile, though the Princess looked pleased. "I think we can. I think I'd like to know what adventure is like."

"Just so," Valentine agreed. "Every important man must have an important woman by his side. And an important Tower. So now my life is complete."

"You're an easy man to please," the Princess commented.

The look in his eye was smoldering, but the Princess wasn't afraid of it in the slightest. "Perhaps. I look forward to figuring out how to please you."

The Princess nodded, accepting the challenge. "Then let's go explore the Borderlands, shall we?"

Valentine laughed as the Tower lurched ahead and the Princess gazed at everything with new eyes. It was going to be a wonderful adventure.

The End.


End file.
